SCOTT WESTERFELD

Sometimes you have to delete characters from a scene just to keep from overcrowding the image.

I've learned a lot about stage-managing for illustration. Sometimes you have to delete characters from a scene just to keep from overcrowding the image. I've also learned to making big-scale design decisions early.

I have no problem with commenters stating strong opinions, except for my usual annoyance with people who don't agree with me.

The difference between being a part-time writer and a full-time writer is like the difference between dating someone and living with them. Some of the romance is gone, but you learn things you'd never know just by dating.

I found a great book called 'Slang Through the Ages' by Jonathon Green. It's basically a thesaurus of historical slang, and had lots of great old uses.

Ninety percent of the research comes first. I mostly blunder around reading stuff and talking to smart people until an idea batters or oozes its way through to my narrative brain.

Luckily for writers - and unluckily for history - every scientific idea creates human conflict.

I have no formal training as a writer at all, not even a single English class in college.

When the term 'machine gun' enters common parlance, the word 'machine' becomes much more sinister.

I used to be a pre-industrial writer: thousands of words in a spurt and then a few days off. But as I get older, I've switched to a mode best described as 'slow and steady wins the race.' Basically, I write during the same four hours every day, after breakfast and the all-important coffee, generally in the same room and wearing the same pajamas.

When I finish a first draft, I often look back at first chapters I wrote and laugh at them. They're like pictures of yourself in middle school. You're embarrassed to see them.

I think any List of Best X creates arguments and people saying 'You listed that rubbish?' That's what lists like this are for.

I have no formal training as a writer at all, not even a single English class in college. However, my adult books are all science fiction, which has some similarities to YA.

I wouldn't say design has become strictly functional. A lot of cars these days look downright comic book to me, and the info-gadgets with which late industrial people spend the most time - phones, music players, etc. - are blobjects.

Warning stickers on books would be a nightmare.

I moved to New York when I was 21 or 22 as a graduate fellow.

Having a brain hurt so much sometimes.

At least one thing was consistent about her life: It just kept on getting more complicated.

Lilt pulled away. "I saw what he was doing, so I cleared a path for him. I helped him do it..." She shook her head, tears tracking the dust off her face, and turned to stare at the fallen tower. "Have we all gone mad to want this?

Dying is one of those things that can’t be fixed. Not by talking about it, not with all the brain surge in the world.

He makes me feel like that. Like flying.

Let others wage war. You, lucky Austria, shall marry.

Why are you still wearing...?" Aya began. "Oh, that's not smart plastic? You're really an ugly?" David rolled his eyes and Shay said quietly, "David's never had any surge at all. But I wouldn't use the word ugly...Tally might eat you.

That's how things were out here in the wild, she was learning. Dangerous or beautiful. Or both.

You’d best ask the lady boffin, sir,” Newkirk said. “Midshipmen aren’t allowed to have opinions.